AN UNEASY ALLIANCE

During early 1962 I began to work as a licensed private Investigator and a Para-legal for a local attorney.  The offices were in the Lehman Building and by then there was very little in the way of Commerce going on in Downtown Peoria, Illinois.  Of course I am comparing the downtown area to the way it was way back when. I can tell you that we were pretty damn sophisticated as early as the Civil War, and we did nothing but grow over the years.  I am just guessing…since I did not look it up, but I think there were around 600 attorneys in 1962 and that seemed to be about it as for business.  Almost everything else had moved north and that included most of the doctors.  Now I am talking about ‘Downtown’ which truth be known was really about 8 square blocks if you think like and old Peorian…which I am.

 

I got to know most of them, the judges and the police, since they were just down the block a few blocks.  The taverns down there, close to us pretty much were a meeting place for most of us and frankly we had a wonderful time all during that period.  It all ended for me in 1982. You remember 1982 and that phrase we all uttered. “When you leave Town be sure and turn off the lights.”  I bring all this up to get you to think about 1962 when a rumor began to spread around town which we heard from Firemen and Policemen.  They talked about something called integrating with each other.  By that I mean that the patrol officers were to become firemen.  It was that simple. A ‘Cooperative Police Officer.’ Say what?  They ended up calling it ‘CPO.’

 

Believe me that was not a popular plan among the officers and the firemen did not like it either.  At first we thought that meant the entire police department becoming not only police officers but firemen as well.  But that was NOT the case: but you know how rumors are. Now the fireman did not have to become a police officer, but they did not like the idea working along side a man that was not properly trained to fight fires.  The police officer would only have a two week fire fighting course under his belt and that worried the highly trained fireman. Well, ‘City Hall’ makes the decisions and the program went forward. Actually the vote was 6 to 4 against but that did not seem to deter the ‘powers that be.’ Folks went to the Council Meetings, police officers and firemen appeared as well and the fight was on. Well the damn thing was defeated but with in a rather short time it was back on the table and you guessed it…the damn thing passed. Now the homeowner that lived within the city limits was pretty much for it because the champions of this new program were pretty convincing in their argument that it would save people money and it would not jeopardize their safety. Hell…that’s about all they needed to hear.  Lower real estate taxes! Hell I am for that, or so the thinking went and the juggernaut rolled on.

 

The truth is it was only a partial integration. ‘Partial’ being the key word.   The city is broken up into fire and police zones and this program would begin in just two of those fire zones.  The fire zones were also covered by police Sectors and those police officers would report to duty and patrol in their police cars as usual.  However, when the fire alarm was sounded they responded to the scene of the fire and changed into their fire fighting clothes and become a Hose man or whatever else they were called upon to do as a fireman.  The police officers that were assigned to those zones went to work in their patrol cars, in uniform and armed.  We joked about them changing their clothes in telephone booths just like Superman.  When the fire was out, the officer was released from fire duty and back he went on duty in his patrol car.  You get the picture? We also wondered about the smell of smoke being on the police officer and there were quite a few comments about that situation. It spawned a lot of jokes and the entire arrangement was not a happy situation, especially when it all began.

 

All of this began when eight police officers ‘volunteered’ for the program and on March 3, 1962 they reported to the fire department and were ready for their ‘New Adventure.’  One man broke his ankle and one other dropped out due to a severe back pain… but the program continued.  All their pictures were in the Journal-Star and that is when we really learned that the new job came with a $5,902.00 annual raise.  So that brought a new round of volunteers and shortly after eight more ‘eager’ volunteers were undergoing training.

 

So the program was up and running, I mean what did we really know about the details? Once in awhile there was something in the paper and someone stood up at the Tuesday night meetings and complained or praised the program.  Hell, we just forgot about it…it was between the City and the employees. However in 1970 a lot of ‘facts’ were reported in the Journal-Star, and we became aware of another round of controversy over CPO. In November of 1970 somebody presented a presentation stating that the plan had actually cost the City…meaning us of course, four point six million dollars. Now this caught the attention of homeowners; I included. They concluded by stating that the program reduced “Fire-fighting effectiveness.” It seemed the damn thing was about to be cancelled. Then on March the second a Journal-Star minor headline stated:” Council Begin Dismantling Police Integration.” So there it was after all the verbal battles, political wrangling, bullying and bitterness the great experiment died. It was that simple. Thank God no police officer died because of it.

Editor’s Note:  Norm is a Peoria Historian and monthly contributor to Adventure Sports Outdoors.  norman.kelly@sbcglobal.net